Page:Adventures of Susan Hopley (Volume 1).pdf/265

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250
SUSAN HOPLEY.

bread that that man's purse had provided. "No," said he, "I'll keep my hands free, that by and by, when he has broken poor Fanny's heart, as I am sure he will do, I may challenge him, and have a chance of punishing him for all his cruelty and his insults by blowing out his brains."

What Gaveston had said, had certainly the effect of opening the boy's eyes, as he called it, to his real situation. The darling of his mother, and then the darling of Mr. Wentworth and Fanny, poor Harry had never had occasion to learn what poverty and dependence were; but the lesson was instilled into him now with all its bitterness. He saw that his cousin had no power to protect nor to assist him; and that his presence was only aggravating the misery of her situation in every way. He comprehended what she suffered when she saw him oppressed and insulted; he found that instead of being a comfort to her, he was only an everlasting source of irritation to Gaveston, and of dissension betwixt her and her husband.

It was not without many and bitter tears that poor Harry came to the resolution of leaving Oakfield, and throwing himself upon the world—dear Oakfield, where he had been so happy, and